Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah is the latest to react to Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng's report.
A report by former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng accused several officials from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the Jubilee House of being involved in illegal small-scale mining, commonly known as galamsey.
In the said report Frimpong-Boateng accused the Ofoase-Ayirebi MP of holding a secret meeting to destroy him.
However, the MP has been swift to dismiss the 'false claims' in a statement on Friday, April 21.
He stated that over the years, he had nothing but great admiration for Prof Boateng’s public spirited works and as an inspirational citizen.
But he is utterly disappointed in the former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation for accusing him of him of orchestrating a plan to destroy him.
He said he forgives him.
"I feel gravely offended over the false claims he has made and the hurtful conclusions he has sought to exact about me precisely because of the great esteem in which I have held him. I trust that in the coming months and years he will reflect deeply upon his own actions and comments which have led to his challenges. He should kindly leave me out of his personal fights. I am utterly disappointed but I forgive him."
According to Oppong Nkrumah, he only attended a PRINPAG (Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana) event, jointly organised with the Bank of Ghana on financial reporting and never held any meeting to oust anybody from the government.
“Indeed, the facts are that it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng himself who wrote to the Ghana Police Service in January 2020 reporting the loss of some excavators and calling for an investigation. It was Prof. Frimpong-Boateng himself who in subsequent media interviews mentioned that the number of excavators missing was about 500. Again on or around February 20, 2020, it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng himself who at Parliament House (During interviews on the SONA) engaged in exchanges with the media about the said excavators and promised that they will be recovered”.
“For the record, these are the matters that occasioned the media reports about Prof Frimpong-Boateng and the said excavators. Further, it was Prof. Frimpong-Boateng himself who was later to be seen in a video making comments about the anti-galamsey fight and the release of excavators.
“I Kojo Oppong Nkrumah was not responsible for his initial police report, his subsequent interviews, or any of the claims he made. To be clear, it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s own reports, interviews and videos that generated his media challenges around the time. I am thus disappointed that he would, in this document, seek to blame me for the media reports.”
Click here to read the full response by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah